No sense burying the lead. Jake Shields just got right to it, the way just about every fighter does after a split decision.

“It was a close fight, and personally I thought I had won.”

Insert that exact phrase into a fighter quote after any split call, and there’s about a 98 percent certainty it’ll fit. For Shields (28-6-1 MMA, 3-2 UFC), he got the nod after a close fight against Tyron Woodley (11-2 MMA, 1-1 UFC) a week ago at UFC 161.

And just like most fighters the moment they realize it’s about to be a split decision when Bruce Buffer has to break out who got what score, Shields thought maybe it wasn’t going to go his way – even though, as he said, he thought he did enough.

“When I heard him announce the one judge, I got a little nervous because I knew it was a split decision,” Shields told MMAjunkie.com Radio (www.mmajunkie.com/radio). “You just never know how decisions are going to go. I thought Gilbert Melendez won his fight (against Benson Henderson at UFC on FOX 7) a few weeks ago, so I was just waiting. And obviously I was really happy when I heard that I’d won.”

Shields and Woodley closed out the preliminary card of UFC 161 at MTS Centre in Winnipeg. Their welterweight fight was the featured fight on FX before the pay-per-view main card.

And to say that the fight didn’t make a ton of fans might be an understatement. The fight was contested all on the feet except for a couple moments when Woodley leg kicks took Shields, a former Strikeforce middleweight champ, off his feet. But that was just about all the highlights that Woodley had in him.

UFC President Dana White was quick to post on his Twitter account his feelings on the fight after it happened. “Does anyone think Jake won that fight!?! WTF???” Never one to mince words, he came right back with “Woodley got ROBBED!!”

But Shields contends that he got the nod from two of the three judges because he was pushing forward, at least trying to make things happen.

“I landed a lot more strikes, and I was pressing the fight,” he said. “He didn’t throw many punches. He landed a couple leg kicks. I just felt like I won it off pushing the fight. I was trying to make something happen. I didn’t feel like he was coming after me trying to take the fight.”

And that’s what Woodley’s critics maintained, as well – that when Shields pushed him to the cage and landed short shot after short shot, that Woodley didn’t seem that interested in changing the path he was on.

Woodley did defend all of Shields’ takedowns, and never wanted to go to the ground, himself, no doubt preferring to stay on the feet, hoping to land the home-run shot rather than contend with Shields’ world-class jiu-jitsu.

“I just feel like he underestimated my standup and he wasn’t really able to get off once I started kicking him and throwing punches at him,” Shields said. “I think that was probably his game plan, so I think he was planning to sit back and wait for me, and then throw the big bombs. He threw a couple, but he wasn’t able to land them clean enough. I was thinking he’d be more aggressive and try to take me down, but he never did.”

In the end, Shields got a huge victory, given that his UFC 150 win over Ed Herman was overturned to a no contest when Shields failed his post-fight drug test and was suspended.

Now he’s looking to stay on the up climb. After a welterweight title fight loss to Georges St-Pierre at UFC 129, Shields dealt with the death of his father, then was knocked out by Jake Ellenberger. After a unanimous decision sweep of Yoshihiro Akiyama that was way closer than three 30-27 scores would indicate, and his overturned win over Herman, Shields probably could’ve used a convincing win.

That eluded him again. But he wants to keep going forward, and is looking to fight the stiffest tests the UFC wants to hand him.

“I’d love to fight a Rory MacDonald or Jake Ellenberger,” he said. “Maybe the winner of (Carlos) Condit and (Martin) Kampmann. I’ve already beat them both. Or maybe Demian Maia. There’s lots of possibilities out there.”

MMAjunkie.com Radio broadcasts Monday-Friday at noon ET (9 a.m. PT) live from Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino’s Race & Sports Book. The show is hosted by “Gorgeous” George Garcia, MMAjunkie.com lead staff reporter John Morgan and producer Brian “Goze” Garcia. For more information or to download past episodes, go to www.mmajunkie.com/radio.

As the UFC 189 tour made its last stop in Dublin, featherweight champ Jose Aldo was met with a torrent of abuse from the Irish fans. It might have been unpleasant, but it might also have been just what he needed.